Saturday, June 27, 2009

Trout Stuffing in America

Yes, the Fish Music, a poem by Richard Brautigan

A trout-colored wind blowsthrough my eyes,through my fingers,and I remember how the troutused to hide from the dinosaurswhen they came to drink at the river.The trout hid in subways, castles,and automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away.

When I was in college I was obsessed with the work of Richard Brautigan(left), poet and author of "Trout Fishing in America" and "The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster," though my favorite was an obscure and hysterically funny novel titled "The Hawkline Monster, a Gothic Novel." Whimsical yet sad, his work gave me the same feeling I had reading Depression era writer William Saroyan.

But since this post is about trout, and to my knowledge William Saroyan never wrote about our swimmy friends, I'll leave him aside for now. Which brings me to the fish counter at New Seasons where your correspondent was looking for something to make for dinner. The fresh trout was priced at less than $6 a pound and ten bucks would feed all of us, so I bought three.

I had some of the pea shoot pesto left over from our pasta dinner a couple of nights before, as well as snap peas from the garden, so I stuffed the pesto inside the trout and made a risotto with the snap peas and spring onions. While it cooked, Dave grilled the trout on the Weber and we served them on the bed of risotto along with a salad of butter lettuce dressed with lemon olive oil and salt.

Needless to say, it's one of the best things I've made in the last several months. So if you happen to be here for dinner this summer and I bring out the trout and start going on about Richard Brautigan, act surprised, OK?